Great Question Rollin,
First let’s stage set for all of my followers who actually read real books sans pictures. Mr. Phantoms was selected to play Bruce Wayne in the upcoming SUPERMAN/BATMAN movie that will eventually tee up JUSTICE LEAGUE.

Part of the reason for choosing Affleck is this goes right in line with the New 52 mantra that Batman is the only character who isn’t a petulant child. So the actor needs a little salt & pepper if you are going to bludgeon the Superman/Jesus allegory by making him 33.

The other reason for why Affleck boils simply down to money.

1) He’s known far and wide to entice non-comic people to see the film.
2) He’s attached to Kevin Smith’s taint at this point, so you just got a shit ton of free marketing to greatly boost ROI.
3) It’ll be a huge blow to the Marvel cash cow if this works. This will poke a chink in their seemingly impenetrable movie armor. Look what we could do with Ben and you couldn’t – screw you DAREDEVIL

So there you have it Rollin – salt and pepper money.

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Dear Rob, What about Brad Pitt for batman? Will they ever pick a black superhero for the big screen. In particular a black batman. It’s a two role part…

Great Question Rob,
First let’s address Brad Pitt. There is no way under all the stars in the heavens that Brad Pitt could be a successful BATMAN. For starters he’s too old, WB is building a franchise here and some debate whether Affleck’s knees will hold up for JUSTICE LEAGUE in 2017 and then hopefully sequels. Also Brad Pitt looks too much like a woman in drag, his effeminate features would make the cowl look like a droopy black vagina.

As for a Black Batman, I say why not. I don’t get assed up over these things. There were a horrible set of books in the early 2000’s called Stan lee’s JUST IMAGINE, where Stan reinvented the DC superheroes. Again, the books were wretched and that’s giving leeway to the fact Stan was 112 at the time. BATMAN was black in these books and it worked fine.

I don’t think it’s likely though since it would really break DC continuity. There’s actually another hero in the DC universe who is a basically a black batman called Mr. Terrific – wicked smart and ungodly rich he only misses the dead parents and lack of pigmentation. There’s also a Black Batman called Batwing who is part of Batman Inc and he protects Uganda. The book sells about 14 copies a month, 99% of which are in Uganda.

We need more color in our heroes and thankfully comic companies have been waking up to this fact. For years the only black superheroes had electrical powers or died by their second issue. Today they have a wealth of powers like being black as in the case of Black Panther or a robot as in Cyborg and uhmmmm Luke Cage who likes white women.

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Dear Rob,

With all the recent developments as of late I.e. Bat-fleck, JL Canada, being unable to deliver their 3D covers to all who demand them, and a potentially homosexual lobo. When will DC finally admit that they’ve screwed up?

Great Question Carlos,
The answer is never will they admit anything. Let me tell you something about powerful men, they are made of teflon. Even when they screw up, there’s a team of spinmeisters in their back pocket ready to place the blame on market conditions, deficient employees, faulty products…basically anything except the rich white guy. This is in comics, business essentially any facet of life – powerful people never take blame.

Look at the train wreck that is now Yahoo. Melissa Meyers has essentially done nothing but piss off employees and sink billions of dollars into acquisitions that have borne no fruit. No blame to her though. She simply walked into a company that was already a forgotten relic – at least this is what I predict history will be saying in the next six months.

I don’t know what DC is doing and frankly I’ve gotten to close to them to ask candidly comfortably. I would need the assurance their would be no hurt feelings at the end, because they really are nice chaps at the helm if sometimes misguided.

Bat-flek is part of a larger deal, mark my words. He’s not stupid, this has either got to a tits concept or he gets to make 12 directing projects as a reward. As for why WB wants him, look at all the free publicity this movie received in just one day. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if it was unknown Harry Lipschitz.

3D covers. I don’t buy for a second there’s an actual shortage. Again, a great way to build hype – balloon the speculator market – and get a perceived value of extrodinary proportions until people try to offload them in two years.

Homosexual Lobo or Hobo I guess as he’s now called is what I like to refer to as Retconning androgyny. Did it with Rictor over X-FACTOR and you saw the stir that caused. Lobo has never really been a cocksman we all just assumed because of his biker persona. This is a good way again to get some press, since his appearances have been sucking wind since the New 52.

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Dear Rob,Why does Warner Brothers suck so hard at making movies of the most popular DC characters? Will they ever remove their heads from their asses?

Great Question Alex,
It all boils down to WB being utterly reactionary to the loss of revenue from Harry Potter finishing and Disney essentially handing them their ass over the last few years.

Without a plan your path forward will always be tenuous. Let’s look at what we know about the movie so far:

1) Ben Affleck is BATMAN. Personally I’m ready to give him a shot, if he takes soem pointers from Kevin Smith, we might see a portrayal we’re all happy with. What concerns me more:

2) Is the lack of detail around plot aand script. The teaser at SDCC when tehy read a passage from DARK KNIGHT RETURNS gives me great pause for concern.

It’s not a world building book, it’s a swan song when the dream of heroism has died and shows that all things….even heroes must end. Not a great way to jump into JUSTICE LEAGUE. Plus I was less than enamored with SUPERMAN. Snyder is still too much flash (no pun intended).

The problem is simple, The suits at WB are not letting the comic folks have enough say anymore. Hollywood execs have the imagination of Matt Roszak’s famed Balsa Wood blowup dolls.

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Published by robpatey

By day I'm a content marketer and digital strategist for IBM. At night I transform into comic book reviewer and digital nonsense slinger for Ain't It Cool and any other site insane enough to have me. Views are my own and usually terrible. You've been warned.
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